Supreme Court Allows Trump Administration to Use SAVE Database for Voter Checks

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration may continue using a revamped database to cross-check state voter rolls for potential noncitizens, effectively pausing a lower court injunction that had found the system illegal.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices granted an emergency stay requested by the Justice Department, halting a June order from U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan. Judge Sooknanan had blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s overhauled Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, arguing it violated federal privacy laws and threatened voting rights.

“The Supreme Court said… claims from voting rights groups about the legality of the modified database ‘likely lack merit,'” the high court stated in an unsigned opinion. The justices further noted that under immigration law, the federal government is obligated to assist state and local officials in verifying voter citizenship, and the lower court’s order hindered those efforts.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Jackson argued that the risk of disenfranchising lawful voters outweighed any harm to the government from being prevented from using a system it likely lacked the authority to expand. She noted that states could still conduct individualized voter-roll maintenance despite the ruling.

The decision comes just weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. However, its immediate impact may be limited because federal law prohibits states from systematically removing ineligible voters from registration lists within 90 days of an election.

The SAVE system was significantly altered following an executive order signed by President Trump in March 2025, which sought to enforce a new proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration. Although federal judges have since blocked those specific citizenship rules, the directive led DHS and the Social Security Administration to expand SAVE. The overhaul allowed access to records of natural-born citizens, Social Security numbers, and bulk searches by state and local entities.

Voting rights advocates, including the League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, sued the agencies, contending that consolidating sensitive citizen data from multiple agencies was unlawful. They warned that the database provides inaccurate information, leading to the wrongful cancellation of registered voters’ memberships.

In her June ruling, Judge Sooknanan rejected the administration’s defense, stating that combining private information from millions of Americans bordered on the absurd. She characterized the overhauled system and related notices as arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer had argued before the Supreme Court that Sooknanan’s ruling was “indefensible” and threatened election integrity. He maintained that SAVE merely notifies states whether federal officials can confirm citizenship, placing responsibility for any voter removals on the states rather than the federal government.

A coalition of plaintiffs expressed disappointment but vowed to continue fighting. “Today’s decision is profoundly disappointing, as it puts millions of Americans at risk of being unlawfully targeted by the administration’s unreliable voter purge database weeks before the midterm elections,” the group said in a statement. “However, this case is not over… We will be doing everything in our power to protect Americans’ voting and privacy rights by ensuring that the district court decision stands.”